Life Unlimited Post 7 GMO

The GMO debate in class on Wednesday was interesting to say the least and by that I mean pretty silent which to me meant that everyone either didn't care or some thought that they didn't agree with the side they were on. I personally don't care about the matter because growing up not knowing if there were GMO's in my food hasn't made me polar to one side or the other in the matter. I find that GMO's are useful in the sense that they help grow food faster and that they can create food with more desirable traits so that they last longer. The problem is that the companies are abusing this technology and are monopolizing it. This creates problems within business and how we view GMO's. I want to talk about some of these things because I felt that somethings that I hadn't thought about until now I should have said during class. One of these was that the Pro-GMO side kept preaching was that they can help world hunger and that is wishful thinking on their part. The problem is that because this is a business they wish to make more money and to do that companies like Monsanto create both the seed and the herbicide that they can sell in large amounts because of two reasons the terminator gene and that they have a patent on the gene. The terminator gene was created by Monsanto so that when the harvest is over the seeds cannot be used again because the gene makes the seeds useless. This is terrible because now farmers who don't do that well are forced to buy these seeds from Monsanto at terrible prices with a contract that is far too binding and controlling to be legal, yet it is. The patent they have may be the worst because it doesn't matter how much of the gene is in your crop or how it gets there, but if some is found companies like Monsanto are allowed to sue the farmers and take all of their hard earned crop. This is a problem because it is terrible business ethics even though it is within the law and that ruins the name of GMOs that could be used for much grander things, but all the companies see is a way to make a profit. Creating this "monopoly" in unhealthy for the farmers who have no say in the matter and on a large scale as GMOs will be seen as a bad business practice resulting in loss of profit. There are many benefits as well such as some of the things I had already mentioned along with what one of my classmates had mentioned which was that we send food, most likely with GMOs, to other countries that need it because it has one advantage then to not sending money which is that local warlords or those that would do harm with the money will not use the funds for bad purposes. Other benefits include that we could make GMOs potentially healthier with the right amount of technology by giving the properties of other natural foods because some foods lack nutrients that certain diets need. These are just some small thoughts of mine that I wish I had brought up during the debate.